When I first saw that they were making this show the first thing I thought I had was they were going to ruin it. The original movie I think in extremely important to horror movies and vampires especially. We got something that was not only different as far as storylines go but we got something that made vampires different. Gone was the idea of bats and pretty things.

The series takes that movie and does everything it could to try to flesh out the story in ways that weren’t really needed for the movie but had to be done with series. The first being a bit of back story as to why there were serpents instead of bats and it was great that they used Aztec as a background. I loved that they made Santanica a bigger part of the story. In this version of the story it was her that was beckoning Richie to her; he was a prophesized one that would set her free.

They made some other changes, Carlos plays a much bigger role as he is actually one of the vampires and is luring them there to take the money that they stole from a bank. They seemed to remove references to Richie being a sexual deviant, made a Texas Ranger an important character (sorry I can’t say why) and made some changes to Sex Machine. I would say that all of these made the characters a little bit more enjoyable. Carlos was almost non-existant in the movie, more of a cameo than anything else. The ranger was something that was in the second film but I felt like it was a missing in the movie so I really like the addition. The sexual deviant thing with Richie is something that I felt needed to go. I didn’t see a point to it when the I watched the movie and now that it isn’t in the show I like the character even more.

The acting was good but it is really hard to watch considering who they had in the movie and comparing them to this. For example D.J. Cotrona and Zane Holtz verses George Clooney and Quentin Taratino as the Gecko Brothers, its not very fare but it is really hard not to compare them. The rest of the cast I think may be a bit of an improvement here and there, I know some are going to hate on that but I’m not a big fan of Salma Hayek. She was replaced with Eiza Gonzalez, Madison Davenport took over the Kate role and greatly improved the part even though Juliette Lewis did a great job. Its not fair that these people had to do these parts that a lot of people really hold dear, come on… who would want to replace George Clooney? That’s some big shoes to fill.

There were some downsides; I really missed the grindhouse feel of the movie. I don’t know if Netflix wasn’t interested in that kind of look and feel or if they felt it was outdated or what. I know the second one didn’t have the feel either. Robert Rodriguez really does have an amazing feel to his movies that it seems like only he can produce. There was also a dark humor to the movie that I absolutely love and that was something that was missing.

There are some twists and turns that make it different, there is still a lot of content that is the same but some of the new information that was given really helped make this something worth watching. Now Season 2 is coming out sometime soon(ish) and I will definitely be watching it.

Oh and go watch this on Netflix because that is the only place you can really see it unless you have El Ray.